News from 5 miles east

We recently attended the Railsplitter Alpaca Show in Springfield, IL and we were excited to come away with a Reserve Grand Champion in the white huacaya male category. Our little Melody’s der Bauernhof Adagio has a fantastic blanket of fiber on him and beautiful conformation. We have him scheduled for several Spring shows (MOPACA, The Futurity, MAPACA and Wisconsin Alpaca and Fiber Fest) and we are anxious to see how he does. We also had a vendor space at this year’s show, a first for us, and we entered several items in the fiber competition. We were pleased with the… Continue Reading

This Saturday is Small Business Saturday and we are looking forward to meeting and greeting many old acquaintances and new friends at the farm. We will have our barn open for you to see the alpacas (weather permitting) and our farm store open for you to do some Christmas shopping. We have a great selection of items made by local artists using alpaca fiber produced by our alpacas. We have hats, scarves, ponchos, shawls and jewelry, plus wonderful alpaca socks imported from Peru. We will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. We look forward to seeing you.

Our new Fall 100% alpaca color blends have arrived and, as usual, Kelly at Dakota Carding and Wool has outdone herself creating the perfect combination of colors. Sunset Silhouette is a “put your arms around me and hug me” blend of natural browns and fawns accented with natural dyed golden yellows, deep russet oranges and lavenders. Lapiz captures all of a range of natural blues that you find in that beautiful stone and accents them with rich natural brown, also often found in the stone. The third blend, Nature’s Bounty, is entirely made up of natural alpaca colors of fawn, black and… Continue Reading

The annual National Alpaca Farm Days are just around the corner and we are busy preparing for two days of delightful interaction with the public. We will have our alpacas and our farm available for visitors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Saturday, September 24th and Sunday, September 25th. We have: two new white cria (baby alpaca) that you can see. There is only two days difference in age and they love to play together. an awesome video of the shearing process taken during this year’s shearing at our farm. lots of new yarn and clothing to show you from… Continue Reading

Another unexpected pleasure we get from our alpacas is sharing them with friends from all over the world. We never tire of telling our story to interested visitors, whether they are from across the road or from another hemisphere. Today was an absolutely beautiful Spring day in Illinois and good friends asked to bring some family visiting from Argentina out to the farm to see the alpacas. We spent a couple of delightful hours with Mark and Monica Ball and Monica’s family from Buenos Aires, Walter and Gladys Bieman and their daughter, Ingrid. The weather was perfect to be out in… Continue Reading

We have just received felting bats beautifully done by Rach-Al-Paca Fiber Processing from fiber from our animals. Rachel always does a great job for us, and the felting bats did not disappoint. Four bundles of bats are in a wonderful blend of fawns and there are five bundles of white felt bats. Believe us when we say that the felting bats are actually as soft, or softer, than they look in the pictures. Suddenly we are itching to get out the olive oil soap and get started felting hats and jewelry. We are putting together some felting classes for this summer, so contact… Continue Reading

The Rail Splitter Alpaca show was this past weekend in Springfield and it was a great show. We showed several of our wearable art pieces and felt fortunate to do very well. Our black beaded shawl, knitted by Melinda Baur using yarn produced by alpacas raised on our farm, not only took first place in its class but took overall honors of Judge’s Choice and People’s Choice. Janetta’s felted cloche also took a first place in its class. It is a privilege for us to get rewarded for doing things that we really love doing.

Come join us at the Rail Splitter Alpaca Show at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois this weekend, March 12th and 13th. We are taking 5 alpacas from der Bauernhof for the halter classes and have some of our hand crafted wearable art entered into the fiber arts competition. Caleb Vogel, who has leased one of our alpacas for his 4-H project, will be showing his animal in the halter class and competing in the showmanship performance class. All-in-all, we are looking forward to a great weekend meeting and greeting new and old alpaca friends and showing our animals… Continue Reading

This winter has been an interesting time to get our animals ready for show. We are never sure if it is going to snow, rain, or be 60 degrees outside. Some days we do lead training in the barn, and other days we are able to do a walkabout around the yard. For the most part the alpacas have been learning the skills needed for the ring. We hope they remember when they are surrounded by a lot of other animals, people and strange noises. This exercise is not only for the show ring, however. Teaching them to lead makes… Continue Reading

We love Fall. It is perfect weather to put on alpaca to chase away those evening chills. And we are gathering our final produce from the garden and canning beans and tomatoes. The fall salad greens are doing great; our Fall kale is very good this year. The studio is humming, too, with spinning, weaving and felting our alpaca into wonderful garments and accessories.